Editor’s note: U.S. embassy in its proper place now

The United States formally moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem on Tuesday in a ceremony attended by President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The move was widely criticized by other world leaders, who feared it would provoke Palestinian violence and set back the goal of peace in the Middle East.

And sure enough, Palestinians mounted a Day of Rage, storming the Israeli security fence and staging protests that quickly turned bloody. Scores of Palestinians were dead by the end of the day.

And for what? Sacrificing their loved ones did not stop the opening ceremony, nor will ongoing violence cause the U.S. to reconsider its decision to leave Tel Aviv in favor of Jerusalem.

It’s the proper position for America to take. Israel has the right to locate its capital where it chooses.

Trying to avoid Palestinian violence is not a good reason to deny Israel the same sovereign right enjoyed by every other nation. Appeasing a people that has adopted terror and bloodshed as a bargaining tactic is a fool’s game. As long as the Palestinians are rewarded for violence, the violence will continue.

As for the cause of peace, it doesn’t really exist at the moment. With leadership divided between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas terror group, the Palestinians are ill-prepared to formally enter peace talks, and even if talks should begin they appear unwilling to make the concessions necessary to reach a two-state settlement.

The best approach is to bring them to the reality that they are not negotiating from a position of strength. Among other things, they’ll have to accept that Israel will never vacate Jerusalem, nor will it allow its presence there to be dictated by outsiders.

Locating the U.S. embassy in Israel’s capital helps drive that point home. As does affirming that neither the U.S. nor Israel will be held hostage any longer by the threat of Palestinian bad behavior.